


The Way We Were

by Lasgalendil



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Coming Out, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Man Out of Time, Marriage Proposal, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Podfic Welcome, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Same-Sex Marriage, Stucky - Freeform, Tony Stark Does What He Wants
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-10 19:25:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5597902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Captain Rogers—Captain Rogers!” a reporter shouts. “What are your thoughts on the legalization of same-sex marriage?”</p><p>They’d been kids together, friends together, never lovers, just two closeted queers ashamed of themselves and the way they were, the way they felt, each wishing the other were braver, would show some sign. What are his thoughts on same-sex marriage? He thinks it’s wonderful. He thinks it's about damn time. He thinks it might just kill him.</p><p>The question goes unanswered. Steve keeps jogging. Sam is silent beside him. And Steve just smiles. Smiles like his heart’s been broken. Smiles like he’s sobbing, like he’s dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Way We Were

James Buchanan Barnes had the annoying habit of picking up dames. He had the even more annoying habit of fishing for dames for Stevie, too. Girls liked Bucky, and Bucky liked girls. And Steve?  
  
…well. Steve wished he were tall and strong like Bucky, had Bucky’s easy-going laugh and carefree charm. Truth was, Steven Grant Rogers was jealous of his best friend, and in more ways than he’d care to admit.  
  
“You’ll love her, Stevie,” Bucky said.  
  
That Steve Rogers doubted. He frowned, stared at his shoes, then finally up at his best friend. “What’d you tell her about me?”  
  
“Only the good stuff,” Bucky promised for the hundredth time if it were the first.  
  
“So not much, then.”  
  
“Aw, c’mon Stevie! What’s the point in a double date if you’re not going have a good time?”  
  
“You’ll have a good time, sure,” Steve pointed out. “I’ll just be stuck playing lookout while you and Margie are busy necking in an alleyway somewhere.”  
  
“ _Presumably_ necking. But you can neither confirm nor deny—“  
  
“—because I didn’t see anything,” Steve sighed. He always got chosen when Bucky and some girl were getting fresh, because no girl wanted to be known as fast, didn’t want anyone walking in, seeing…and, Steve supposed, his meek presence was as non-threatening as it got. Buck and he lived in a queer neighborhood, and most of the girls Buck made time with assumed he was queer just because he was small and sickly and lived with Bucky, thought Bucky was such a swell guy for helping him out, sticking by him even if he was runty and dirty and one of those. Besides, Steve Rogers could be trusted to tell the truth, honest to a fault, and everybody knew it. If ‘little Stevie Rogers’ swore up and down to your ma he was right there with you all night and “I didn’t see no thing like that, ma’am. Never left her side. Not even for a minute”, well, that was one more doll who got to see James Buchanan Barnes for a second date with her parents none the wiser.  
  
He hadn’t seen, no.  But he’d _heard_ plenty. Heard the way Bucky’s breath got hitched and low, the way he could make girls moan. Just once—just once—Steve thought, it would be nice to know how it felt to kiss. To be kissed.  
  
…not by Bucky. Of course not by Bucky. He wasn’t some stupid fairy, and Bucky was a ladies’ man through and though and then some. But to be kissed like that. Whatever it was that Buck could do to a girl’s mouth to make her sound like that…Steve wanted it, whatever it was. Wanted to make someone—maybe even Bucky?—sound like that. Give them that much pleasure. Just because he was small, so goddamned skinny, so goddamned sick didn’t make him any less human. Any less a man.  
  
_Sure, Stevie. You can’t even tug it without needing an asthma cigarette_ , he mused glumly. He remembered the first and only time Buck had caught him at it, slumped and wheezing against the bed frame naked. Concern first, then curiosity, then laughter. Buck had laughed until there were tears in his eyes helping Steve get dressed.  
  
“Serves you right. As if you weren’t sick enough already,” Buck had sniggered. “And you need those eyes to paint!”  
  
“It does NOT make you go blind,” Steve was pissed at himself, his friend, his stubborn, seemingly broken cock, and his piece of shit lungs. He hated his body for all its betrayals. Even now his heart was still hammering in his chest, breath a reedy whine.  
  
“And how would you know?” Buck teased. “Like you’ve ever even managed to get it all the way done before.”  
  
Steve had flushed, furious—because how the hell did Bucky know? “I know because if it did, you’d be _blinder than a fucking bat_.”  
  
“Thank goodness, I don’t have to look at your ugly mug anymore. Or your skinny ass. Put some pants on, Stevie.”  
  
Steve slipped one leg into his trousers at a time, tried to stand, pull them up over his hips to belt them, but didn’t have the strength. Just sat there, half-undone and fucking miserable.  
  
“You know, next time, try not to get so worked up,” Bucky had winked, leaning over and buttoning them, pulling his belt tight and cinching it (“stop mothering me” Steve whispered, “you better hope your poor sweet mother never caught you doing this,” Buck grinned. Steve pushed him.). Tucked the ends in. Straightened Steve’s shirt collar. “and don’t do it on the bed. I sleep there too, you know. And it’s not laundry day until Tuesday. Like I need to be smelling your spunk all over everything.”  
  
“As if yours isn’t all over everything in this apartment,” and every girl in Brooklyn, Steve didn’t have to add.  
  
“Stevie, sweetheart, unlike you, I don’t shit where I eat.” That part was true enough, he supposed. For all his escapades, Bucky’d never brought a girl home.  
  
“Wouldn’t be right, I mean, Jesus, Stevie (for a guy who was a half-Jewish not-even-relapsed Catholic Bucky sure liked to invoke the Lord’s name a whole hell of a lot), you _live_ here. It’s one thing to have you stand watch while I’m necking in some alley but _that_ —?” his cheeks turned even rosier, tongue sliding across his lips, eyes downcast. “Besides, I can’t kick my best fella outta bed.”  
  
“Aw, gee, Buck, you’re awful sweet for a _skirt-chaser_ ,” Steve dug.  
  
Those eyes were thoughtful, a small swallow in his throat. Hesitant. Afraid. “Sweet on you, Stevie,” he teased shyly as Steve frowned. Then Bucky was Bucky again, all laughs and hearty grins, slinging an arm around his shoulders, mussing his hair.  
  
Later that night Buck fell asleep beside him, his deep, even breathing a constant reminder of his presence. Would that be so bad, part of Steve wondered. To be sweet. On Bucky. But he wasn’t some stupid fairy, wasn’t going to snuggle up to Buck like some dame, putting on airs, acting all needy. God (and his ma) only knew what a mess his health had already made for Bucky. James Barnes was a hero for putting up with him at all, let alone taking him in.  
   
No, the last thing—the very last thing—Bucky Barnes needed was to know the real reason he’d caught Steve Rogers jerking off in their shared bed. Steve wanted to know what if would feel like if he were brave.

“Her name’s Betty.”  
  
“Where are we taking them,” Steve asked glumly.  
  
“Out dancing!” Buck laughed, swaying and swinging to the Chatanooga Choo Choo.  
  
“C’mon, Buck,” Steve couldn’t contain a frown. “You know I hate that.”  
  
He stopped, the phonograph spinning, heedless. “Stevie, you _love_ to dance.”  
  
“Yeah, at home. Not out. Not with—“ Steve was a good head shorter than all the girls Bucky brought for him, had shit lungs and—when he was well and nervous—two left feet. Tiny as they were, he couldn’t keep from tripping over them.  
  
“C’mere. I’ll show you,” Bucky Barnes was a dancer, and a hell of a good one. Guy had the hips, the graceful, effortless moves of Fred Astair, the smile of Cary Grant, the earnest, easy-going charisma of James Stewart. Dancing—like life, like girls—came easy to Bucky Barnes. Most nights he ended up having at least a dance with every girl in the hall, if not two. No guy was gonna fault his gal a go with the best, and Buck always gave them back, always left with the same girl he’d walked in, so no hard feelings.  
  
(…and if there were, well. Buck had a mean right hook. Boys learned better than to mess with James Barnes—and girls just couldn’t keep themselves away.)  
  
“Yeah. Cause I need to know _the girl part_ ,” Steve shot bitterly.  
  
But Bucky didn’t blink, didn’t do anything. “It’s okay, Stevie,” he said. “I can be the girl. C’mon.”

Betty McPherson was everything Steve hoped for, everything Steve feared. She was a chubby blonde with bright eyes and a wide smile, thin waist and large hips with legs that went on forever. And she only looked slightly disappointed when Buck introduced him, one wistful glance at James Buchanan Barnes and the girl lucky enough to be on his arm before she smiled gracefully down at Steve and  resigned herself to a night with Steve Rogers.  
  
…Steve was tired of girls resigning themselves to a night with Steve Rogers. Even pretty ones like Betty (especially pretty ones like Betty.).  
  
Dancing with Buck hadn’t helped one bit, and Steve stepped on the poor dame’s toes more times than he could count, felt himself flushing with the effort of looking away as they danced, her soft, round tits right in his face all night. Betty found it—amusing? He thought, the way she simpered when she laughed, like she was laughing both at him and with him. But she was good to her word, came to the dance with Steve and left with Steve, even if Bucky Barnes stole a dance. “I promised, Stevie,” he shrugged. “You understand. Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back without a scratch on her!” and he winked while Betty tittered and flirted.  
  
The only good thing to come of the night was the kiss. It was a rare occasion when Steve’s date stayed the duration and didn’t leave because “I promised ma I’d be home” or “I forgot I had to watch my niece” or even just left his side for a dance with another boy and forgot who she came with. But Margie had eyes for Bucky, and Bucky was making eyes at Margie, so Steve got roped into following them, like usual. To his surprise, Betty tagged along.  
  
Betty sputtered and sniggered, kept looking over her shoulder, calling Margie a tramp. Steve frowned.“Tell me you don’t think she’s a tramp,” Betty pouted. “She’s putting it out there well and good.”  
  
“Nothing wrong with a little kissing,” Steve flushed, still facing away. He’d stand up for any girl, didn’t think it was right, it was fair, that boys like Bucky Barnes could kiss all the girls they wanted and it was good, but if a girl so much as kissed Bucky it was like she was tainted. Oh, sure, he’d take a swing any guy who tried to kiss a girl if she didn’t want him to…but wanting him to? Well. That was different.  
  
“That ain’t just kissing. Those two are _necking_.”  
  
“It’s Bucky Barnes,” Steve said, only slightly bitter “You have to kiss him. It’s in the rules.”  
  
“The rules, huh? What rules are those?”’  
  
“Life,” Steve sighed.  
  
“Life ain’t fair, Stevie Rogers,” Betty shrugged. “I wanted to go with Buck, but Margie got to him first. By rights it ought to be _me_ necking him. But that’s life—Margie’ll get the handsome guy and get married and have babies and a house and I’ll be a working girl and a spinster. It’s how it is.”  
  
“I don’t think you’ll be a spinster,” Steve said. “You’re too nice for that.”  
  
“Boys don’t care about nice.”  
  
“Nice boys do.”  
  
Betty laughed, clutched her sides, rubbed the soft fabric of her dress. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you, Stevie? Girls don’t care about nice boys.” Then she kissed him.  
  
It was short, sweet, over so fast Steve didn’t even have time to register, let alone savor it. One moment she was talking, the next something had happened and his face was flushing furiously and there was the sound of Bucky laughing, an arm slung around his shoulders, his hair being mussed. “You punk,” Bucky held him out at arm’s length. “You were supposed to be watching out for me!” Then he winked at Betty. “Glad someone’s watching out for him.”  
  
Steve wanted to stay in the alley. Wanted Betty to have a chance to kiss him again. But Bucky was all ‘Stevie this, Stevie that’, gave his arm to Betty and said it was time to walk the girls home.  
  
It was humiliating. It was unfair. Bucky’d _never_ treated him like this, never belittled him, never insulted him but all the way back to the girls’ place he told stories about 'Little Stevie Rogers' and all the girls Stevie’d never gotten the chance to kiss. And if Steve was unhappy—miserable, even—then Margie was absolutely _furious_.  
  
“Why’d you go and do that for?” Steve shouted once they got home. Sure, he and Buck could scrap like cats and dogs, but they were friends. Steve had never yelled at Bucky in anger before.  
  
“Do what?” Bucky set his jaw, ground his teeth, his eyes dark. “Do _what_ , Stevie?”  
  
“You went and ruined everything!”  
  
“Stevie—“ Buck reached a hand out for his shoulder. But Steve was livid, didn’t want any part of it, and stormed out of their room, clamored onto the couch, laid down with his face to the cushions and cried. Steve hated crying, made his breath hitch, his throat ache, his chest sore. Made him look even more like a goddamned kid. But Steve crying hurt Bucky, too, and right now Bucky Barnes deserved it for being a backstabbing bastard.  
  
“Stevie, it’s cold,” Bucky said, not an ounce of apology in his voice. “Come to bed.” Steve ignored him.  
  
“Stevie, c’mon,” he wheedled. “You’ll catch a cold.” Let him. It’d serve Bucky right, Steve getting sick, it being his fault. He deserved it. A large hand brushed his shoulder. “Stevie, I mean it.”  
  
“Leave me alone!”  
  
“Fine! Fine, Rogers! Die of pneumonia. You and your goddamned pride.”  
  
Steve heard the bedroom door slam shut behind him. _You and your goddamned pride_ , Buck said. Steve sniffled miserably, wrapped his arms around himself and cried himself to sleep.  
  
He woke in the morning with an ache in his throat, a fever on his face and Bucky’s coat draped over him. Steve was laid up in bed for three days. They never did get around to talking about it, not even when Steve got so weak Bucky had to lift him to carry him to the bathroom, hold his shoulders so he could stand.  
  
_You and your goddamned pride, Rogers_ , Steve cursed himself. _You and your goddamned pride._ How could a girl he’d known for less than a day come so far between them?

* * *

One week. That’s how long it took to talk about it. “Was that your first kiss, Stevie?” Bucky asked while they were changing for bed.  
  
“You damn well know it was,” Steve scowled.  
  
He was quiet for a while. “Well. It hardly counts.”  
  
“It fucking counts, Buck.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Y’know, you just need practice.”  
  
“Yeah. ‘Cause girls are lining up to kiss ‘little Stevie Rogers’. I wish you wouldn’t. Call me that.” _People already think I’m a queer, think I’m a kid_ , he didn’t add.  
  
“Okay, Stevi—Steve.”  
  
“Not here, you punk,” Steve sighed. “Out. I don’t care what you call me here.”  
  
“Okay, Stevie,” Buck’s voice was unusually quiet. “It doesn’t have to be a girl, you know. You can kiss me. For practice. If you want.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Plenty of fellas do it,” Buck whispered. “For practice. C’mere, Stevie. Give me a kiss.”  
  
“I—“ Steve started. “I don’t think I can do that, Buck.”  
  
“C’mon, Stevie,” Buck sat on the bedside, suddenly short, scared, shy. They were nearly eye to eye. “Kiss me.”  
  
_For practice_ , Steve thought. _It’s just practice_. “I—“ So he leaned forward, eyes open, brought his lips near to Bucky’s pert mouth.  
  
“Jesus, Stevie!” Buck laughed, near to giggled, pushed him away. “You can’t just _go for it._ ”  
  
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Steve hated this. Hated himself for agreeing. Hated himself for not stopping. “Not like I’ve done it, not like I’ve watched it, thanks to you—“  
  
“Hey, hey,” Buck laid a hand on his bare arm, not a trace of anger or fight in his tone. “Touch me.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“C’mon, Stevie. Touch me. Brush my hair back. Put your hands on my face. Tilt my chin. Let me know you care, that it’s not just making time, that you don’t think I’m fast or forward. Tell me you love me.”  
  
“Bucky—“  
  
“C’mon, Stevie,” Buck whispered, near to whined. “I’m a girl. I gotta know you care first. Then you can kiss me all you fucking want,” then he smiled. Sly little grin, sideways glance, lick of the lips. Pure James Buchanan Barnes. “Treat me right, might even let you do more.”  
  
Vaguely Steve wondered how many girls had fallen for that exact same trick, lost their first kiss—and more—to Bucky’s charm. He felt heavy, stumbling, lifted a leaden hand up to Buck’s face.  
  
The skin trembled beneath his touch. Buck leaned into it, brought his cheek, the weight of his head to rest in Steve’s palm. Just held it there. “More,” Bucky whispered after a minute. “More, Stevie. Touch me more.”  
  
Steve stepped closer. Standing between Bucky’s knees, felt their legs brushing. Brought up his left hand slowly, laid in it Bucky’s slicked hair, felt the brylcreem crinkle under his touch.  
  
_This is wrong_ , Steve thought, heart beating fast. A girl’s hair would be _long_ , would be _soft_ —  
  
Bucky’s breath came in short gasps against his right wrist. His eyes were wide in the dark, searching Steve’s face, inscrutable.  
  
_He has long lashes_ , Steve thought stupidly. _Like a girl’s_. That wasn’t too bad. Steve could pretend—  
  
He smoothed the skin of Bucky’s face, brought his right thumb up to the fragile place around his eye, felt it close under his touch, ran the pad across the flitting lashes, winking shut over, under, around him. There was a knot growing in his throat, a sick, queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
“Kiss me,” Bucky breathed. “Stevie—“  
  
That wasn’t right either, Steve frowned. No self-respecting girl would say that. And he wouldn’t let some girl call him Stevie, either. But Buck’s pulse was wild under Steve’s touch, had brought his own hands up to hold over Steve’s, turned his face, turned his face and brushed those full lips against the inside of Steve’s wrist.  
  
It was just pretend, Steve told that feeling in his stomach, settling warmer and warmer within him. “Thought you were ‘posed to be a girl, Buck.”  
  
“Never said it was my first time,” Bucky whispered, staring up at him from under those lashes. “You don’t think I’m easy, baby, do you? You can forgive me for not waiting for you? Want you so bad, baby.”  
  
“Jesus, Buck,” Steve flushed. Had to stop himself from a reflexive hail Mary, sorry ma. Standing here, aiming to kiss his best friend, didn’t feel right apologizing to God or his ma at the moment. Maybe after. Maybe later. Maybe then Steve would feel sorry.  
  
Steve stepped closer. Brought his hands under Bucky’s chin, cradling his face, instinctive, suddenly sure. The skin was so soft, so smooth, and Buck whined at the touch, eyes flitting shut, lips parted, and Steve felt that strong jaw soften, loosen, ready, willing and waiting for the press of his lips against Bucky’s own.  
  
Just pretend, Steve thought. Like he was a girl. He cupped his hand under the slight cleft in Buck’s chin, brought his mouth to Bucky’s full lips, touched them to his. Didn’t close them, just stood there, face to face, just brushing. Bucky’s breath was so hot, so short, so stilted.  
  
“Fuck, Stevie,” Bucky moaned. “ _Kiss me_.”  
  
_A girl wouldn’t say that_ , Steve wondered absently. _A girl wouldn’t call him Stevie—_  
  
The inside of Bucky’s lips were wet, hot, tasted like cigarettes and beer. Bucky whined, breathing his air, mouth softening and making way for Steve’s own, their kiss deepening. He didn’t chase it, just let it linger, then slowly closed his lips. Drew away.  
  
“Bucky—“

Bucky leaned forward. Brought a hand behind Steve’s head, pulled him back, pulled their mouths together, flushed lips full and pliable, his tongue soft yet insistent. Steve’s hands came up, braced against Bucky’s shoulders, he thought about pushing himself away, about pulling that shirt into fists in his hands, drawing Bucky closer, about kneading his long fingers into the heat of the hard muscle beneath—  
  
It’s only pretend. But it’s all wrong. A girl wouldn’t have such large shoulders, wouldn’t have the tiniest traces of stubble tickling against him, setting his skin on fire. He wanted to pretend, he wanted to. He really did. But kissing Bucky—Bucky Barnes—just felt too good.  
  
Steve palmed those shoulders, sucked against Bucky’s bottom lip, pulled his body closer, meeting from hips to sternum. Felt Bucky’s chest rise and fall against his, breath just as high, as hitched as his own. Then Steve pushed—gently—pushed him back, and Bucky went willingly under him as Steve brought a knee up to climb onto the bed.  
  
And fuck. Bucky’s _gorgeous_. Grey eyes under fluttering lashes, parted lips full and red, the sheen of sweat on his face, heaving chest, the body underneath him was hard and warm, shivering with pleasure.  it’s not like kissing a girl, not like kissing a girl at all, Steve thought. Bucky’s tongue flitted against his, and Steve licked the inside of Bucky’s lips, felt the heat of his breath, the full, frank, dullness of his teeth, tasted the salt from his sweat and the lingering ash of Bucky’s last cigarette. Bucky brought his hands up, pawing at Steve softly, touching hair, face, stroking down his shoulders. Steve clasped Bucky’s hair tighter, held his head down, tilted that chin up to change the angle of that kiss so he can kiss him fully, climbed the rest of the way into the bed, dragging himself up and over Bucky.  
  
Bucky let out a sinful sound. “ _Stevie_ —“  
  
Steve couldn’t talk. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t fucking do anything but kiss. He’d waited so goddamned long for this he just wanted to get lost. His legs were tangled up with Bucky’s, and a hot ache hit the pit of his spine. And—  
  
It wasn’t like kissing a girl, Steve decided. Not at all. A girl wouldn’t have—well. And Bucky was hard. As hard as he was.  
  
“God, Stevie,” Bucky panted through parted lips, bringing his hips up to slide against Steve’s own. “I fucking love you.”  
  
I love you. His best friend. _Bucky_. And he’s straddling him on their bed. Steve pulled away, suddenly ashamed. Feeling sick.  
  
“Stevie?” Bucky asked shyly, eyes wild with worry. “ _Stevie—_?”  
  
“It’s—“ Steve bit his kiss-sore lips. Looked away. “It’s, it’s all just pretend, right, Buck?”  
  
Bucky smiled. Smiled like his heart’s been broken. Smiled like he’s sobbing. Like he’s dying. “Sure. Sure it is, Stevie. Just pretend,” he whispered, smoothing back Steve’s fringe. “All just pretend.”  
  
They never kissed again.

* * *

It’s 2014, and marriage equality is made legal in the United States. A stray reporter finds Captain America on his morning jog, makes a point to interrupt.  
  
“Captain Rogers—Captain Rogers!” she shouts. “What are your thoughts on same-sex marriage?”  
  
They’d been kids together, friends together, never lovers, just two closeted queers ashamed of themselves and the way they were, the way they felt, each wishing the other were braver, would show some sign. What are his thoughts on same-sex marriage? He thinks it’s wonderful. He thinks its about damn time. He thinks it might just kill him.  
  
The question goes unanswered. Steve keeps jogging. Sam is silent beside him. And Steve just smiles. Smiles like his heart’s been broken. Smiles like he’s sobbing, like he’s dying. 


	2. The Way We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He remembered now. Remembered noses, foreheads, lips brushing. Fumbling about in the dark, not knowing what they were doing. Remembered gentle urgings on, instructions, nervous gasps. Remembered kissing Stevie. It was so solid, so sure, so very real. He let out a little laugh then, leaned into that touch, pushed himself up on his knees, turned his lips to—
> 
> Steve drew away. “Buck…what are you doing?”
> 
> “A kiss, Stevie,” Bucky said, trembling as the surety of memory rushed over him. “C’mere. C’mon. Kiss me.”

Steve Rogers is The Man Out of Time. Steve Rogers is the face of 20th Century American Values. Steve Rogers is a War Hero. Steve Rogers is the Greatest Soldier of the Greatest Generation. Steve Rogers is an international icon. Steve Rogers is fucking perfect, the media’s golden boy, the face of America, the UN, the Avengers, and Steve Rogers is everything fucking wrong with the world.  
  
Steve Rogers is his friend. Was. Will be. His mind was still scrambled by electricity, years of heavy-hitting anti-psychotics and benzodiazepines. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know how. But the memories are there, if not intact, if not present, and he is somehow lucky enough to be—to have been, to will always be, will have always been—Steve Rogers’ best friend.  
  
The Asset broke under the weight of that information, but it hadn’t been Bucky Barnes waiting underneath the cracks. He wasn’t the man he only vaguely remembered being. Not now. Not anymore. He wasn’t the Winter Soldier, wasn’t James Barnes, he was both, neither, forever. Hell, he knew he wasn’t the man Stevie (“I used to call you Stevie. You were smaller then.” “You can still call me Stevie, Buck.”) once knew. If he were, Stevie wouldn’t smile like he was sobbing, dying everytime Bucky managed to eat a full meal, tried on a smile, let out the smallest glimmer of a laugh.  
  
Stevie Rogers said he was James Buchanan Barnes. But Stevie didn’t _believe_ it—not really. Stevie Rogers was a liar. (Stevie Rogers was the most honest man he’d ever meet.)  
  
Bucky wasn’t the man Stevie remembered. Not the man the Smithsonian claimed him to be. But that wasn’t nearly so disappointing, not nearly as bothersome as the slow, awful thought that the Steve Rogers who saved him was nothing like the boy Bucky Barnes had thought he’d known another life ago.  
  
“He hated you,” Bucky said when Stevie came home. “For growing up. For not needing him.”  
  
But Stevie only hung his coat. Slipped off his shoes. Didn’t look him in the eye. “He never said.”  
  
“You knew,” Bucky insisted, still perched backwards on the couch, half-hiding behind the rise. “He knew you knew. You knew he hated you.”  
  
“That was seventy years ago, Buck.”  
  
“But he _hated you_. He hated you _so much_. He was afraid you’d leave him. For the war. For Carter. That’s why he pretended. Pretended to be alright. He’d lay awake all night because he couldn’t sleep and he knew something was wrong but he never said. He wanted you to think he was still Bucky Barnes. He wanted you to think you could need him.”  
  
“Bucky—“  
  
“But you didn’t,” Bucky whispered. “And he wasn’t. Not even then.”  
  
Steve crossed the room in three firm strides. “You’re here now, Bucky. You’re safe. I’d never leave you.”  
  
“But you did,” Bucky said. “He waited for you. He waited. He was a prisoner of war and he waited for you.  They raped him and beat him and hurt him _but he waited for you._ He had the chance to kill himself once and he didn’t because he was waiting for you. He thought you’d come save him.”  
  
Something moved in Steve’s throat. He swallowed. Said, “It’s okay to remember, Buck. It’s okay. You can say, you can tell me anything you want.”  
  
“Then they said you were dead,” Bucky continued, memories rushing back, voice rising in pitch and speed, talking faster and faster. “He didn’t believe them. Couldn’t believe them. They showed him pictures and papers and press clippings, they brought a tv so he could watch the fucking funeral. They made him watch until he believed it and he gave up. _He just gave up,_ ” Bucky panted. “Why?”  
  
“I don’t know why they wanted to hurt you so bad, Buck,” Steve whispered. “But no one’s going to hurt you like that again.”  
  
“Why?” Bucky asked. It bothered him. Not that they’d taken the body, taken the arm, taken his mind, taken him over and over again until he was raw and bloody on both ends, taken him out and put The Soldier in. It bothered him now, the memories so scattered yet so sure. Barnes had the chance to end it all, to escape—but he didn’t. He stayed. He chose to stay. For Stevie. “Why?” Bucky demanded, pleaded. “Why, Stevie, why?”  
  
_Why did Barnes let them hurt him? Why did he stay—why did I stay—for you?_  
  
“I don't know, Buck,” Stevie sighed, clapped a hand firmly on his shoulder. “I just don’t know.”  
  
He thought—flinched, perhaps, for just a moment—but the hand stayed there, heavy and hot but the hand stayed there. It didn’t move. Didn’t grope him, roam over him, hurt him. The touch made him happy, the touch made him delirious. He knew that hand, large as it was, he knew that hand he fucking remembered that fucking hand. And Bucky had memories—hopes?—that it did, that it had, that that hand had touched his face, cupped his chin, scratched into his shoulders in passion. That it would do so again.  
  
He remembered now. Remembered noses, foreheads, lips brushing. Fumbling about in the dark, not knowing what they were doing. Remembered gentle urgings on, instructions, nervous gasps. Remembered kissing Stevie. It was so solid, so sure, so very _real._ He let out a little laugh then, leaned into that touch, pushed himself up on his knees, turned his lips to—  
  
Steve drew away. “Buck…what are you doing?”  
  
“A kiss, Stevie,” Bucky said, trembling as the surety of memory rushed over him. “C’mere. C’mon. Kiss me.”  
  
Steve only paled. “Buck—Buck that was _Pierce_. Pierce was the one who—“ Steve put his face in his hands. And fuck. Fuck. Fuck him. Fuck him and his fucking broken brain. Fuck everything. Stevie was crying. He’d made Stevie cry. He was a monster, he’d made Stevie cry, all the things in his fucking head he’d, he’d thought—he’d mistaken Pierce for Stevie, confused his Handlers—  
  
“He hurt you, Buck,” Stevie sobbed, hand up, tried to keep the monster that was James Buchanan Barnes at bay. But James Buchanan Barnes would’ve held him anyways. The real James. (He wasn’t. Couldn’t. Didn’t.) “He made you do things—fuck, the things he made you do—I, I will never ask you to do that, okay? I will never make you do anything you don’t want to do.”  
  
But—  
  
But Pierce had never—not that, Bucky frowned. Pierce had done disgusting, depraved shit to his mouth to his cock to his ass there wasn’t an inch of this battered body inside and out not covered in that bastard’s filth. But this kiss, this memory—it was special. Sacred. Whatever was still left of James Barnes had kept it locked deep inside where even HYDRA, even Pierce’s sick programming couldn’t taint it.  
  
But Bucky did want to. And they had, hadn’t they? He wasn’t James Buchanan Barnes, not anymore, but he _remembered_ , damnit. And he wanted. Wanted this memory again.  
  
“But—“  
  
“But nothing, Bucky. You’re confused. You’re hurt. I will never hurt you.”  
  
_But I want to. I want to kiss you. Be kissed by you._  
  
“But you and I—Stevie—weren’t we—we were—“ _We were lovers_ , he wanted to ask, say, shout. _We were lovers. Once. A long time ago._  
  
“We were _friends_ , Buck,” Steve said. His voice was firm.  “Friends and nothing more.”  
  
And somehow that pronouncement was worse than seventy years under ice, than waking in a helicarrier with the broken body beneath him, metal hand bloodied.  
  
Bucky didn’t move from the couch. Steve went to bed. It was the first night they’d slept alone.  


* * *

“What are we,” Bucky said over breakfast. “What are we now.”  
  
“We’re friends, Buck,” Steve said. Pressed his hand once then let go. “We’ve always been friends.”  
  
_What if I don’t want to be._  
  
But Bucky Barnes wasn’t the real James Buchanan. Was the Winter Soldier. Was filth and shit and garbage. He couldn’t ask Steve to love him, to risk being hurt, getting killed, for loving him. Not that.

* * *

 

HYDRA was a piece of shit. SHIELD was a piece of shit. The Winter Soldier was the biggest piece of shit of them all. Nat Romanov had leaked those files—those fucking files—and everything HYDRA had ever done in the last century was suddenly public knowledge. And well, that the Winter Soldier was/had once been beloved Howling Commando Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes garnered him some sympathy, sure. Something about ‘world’s longest serving POW, oldest veteran, survivor of sexual abuse, etc.’ pulled the heartstrings of the American public, the world, etc. It was enough to make Bucky sick.  
  
…then the Kennedy thing. And well, brain-washed by a terrorist organization be damned, held prisoner for over seventy years be fucked, had his head scrambled by a mixture of blunt force trauma, hypothermia, ECT, anti-psychotics and sedatives go to hell, The Winter Soldier had assassinated a president of the United States. He’d killed a Commander in Chief. And the American people weren’t going to be forgiving of that.  
  
He was _named_ , damnit, named in the fucking Sokovia Accords. He wouldn’t be charged just in the United States, no, he’d be facing the fucking International Criminal Court. Charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity.  
  
And no one but him thought it was hilarious that his captors, his Handlers, his tormentors would escape justice because Bucky had killed them all. He’d caught and killed those responsible, half The Soldier, half The Sergeant, knew what had to be done and made his choice to keep Stevie, keep the world safe. The War wasn’t over until the last one of those bastards had ceased to draw breath…the masterminds behind the assassinations, the terrorism, the war crimes. He’d killed them all—saved the world’s worthless asses, the ingrates—and they called him a criminal.  
  
Now they wanted to kill him. Kill him for it and call it justice. _You’re welcome, fuckers. My pleasure, assholes._  
  
The news wasn't taken well. The Smithsonian had been vandalized. People burned their Bucky Bears. Vintage Captain America comics suddenly weren’t worth shit. Bucky Barnes was an inconvenient truth to an inconvenienced world. So SHIELD, so STARK industries…they weren’t his protecters. Not anymore. He’d been bought and sold by the court system, allowed to stand bail so long as he wore an ankle monitor, so long as he never left STARK Tower. His new cage was roomy, comfortable, not a cryo tank in sight, sure, but it was still a prison. And The Winter Soldier was still an Asset.  
  
“I leveraged my entire Company getting your ass bail, Barnes,” Stark said. “How about I get a good long look at that arm of yours.” It hadn’t been a joke. A question.  
  
There were meetings with attorneys. With doctors. With Pepper Potts and her PR Team and occasionally members of the press. And behind it all, behind him, there was Steve. Steve had orchestrated this chaos, this circus, all in the hopes of keeping him safe. And when someone stepped over a line—when the _President_ had stepped over a line—Steve Rogers let the world know exactly where he stood. (By Bucky’s side.)  
  
“And we agree with the World Court’s determination that the Winter Soldier poses a significant threat—“  
  
“Say his name,” Steve said. “Mr. President, say his name. His name is James Buchanan Barnes.”  
  
“—and will be remanded into the custody of the World Security Council and extradited to stand trial per the Sokovia Accords.”  
  
“James Buchanan Barnes. He’s the longest serving Prisoner of War, the longest standing member of the Armed Forces. A Sergeant in the United States military.  He’s a citizen if the United States. He gave his life for this country, Mr. President. If you’re going to damn him, if you won’t fight for him as his Commander in Chief and President then at the very least give him the courtesy—the American people the decency—to say his name.”

Steve Rogers had been escorted from The White House Press Room by the Secret Service. On National Television. He didn't shout, didn't resist, let himself be led away, the picture of civil disobedience.

All hell had broken loose. President or not, White House or not, nothing was more patriotic or American than a living, breathing superhero from the second world war who'd come back to life in time to save the world four times in the last four years stand up to the establishment in a staggering display of non-violent protest in favor of the underrepresented.  
  
#sayhisname #Jamesbuchananbarnes #steverogersdadfac _e_ #capdidn'tdieforthisshit  
  
“Well,” Stark said cheerfully a few days later once the shit storm had died down from tsunami proportions to a simple seasonal hurricane. “I think we can agree that The White House Press Conference was an unmitigated disaster.”  
  
Maria Hill frowned, her mouth a firm, set line.  
  
“How come I’m not allowed to back-talk the President?” Stark whined. “How come I never get invited to these things, huh?”  
  
“Because you got in enough trouble with Congress, Stark. We need to talk.”  
  
“Winter Boy stays here. I already said it.”  
  
“We may not have legal grounds to hold him.”  
  
“I’m Tony Stark. CEO—well, ex-CEO of STARK Industries. I’m fucking Iron Man. Between Cap and I we got the President to back down and agree to try Barnes on US soil, in the US court system before his approval rating went negative. I say that's grounds enough."  
  
Maria made no response.  
  
“What are they going to do,” he shrugged, took a swig of coffee. “Walk in here and take my stuff?” Because that’s what The Soldier was. Not Bucky. Not human. Just Stuff.  
  
“They’ve done it before.”  
  
Stark grinned. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Cap’s boytoy stays.”  
  
Steve said nothing. Bucky wanted to die. They weren’t. He wasn’t. Steve said so. (Steve said no.)  
  
“Steve is part of the problem,” Maria sighed.  
  
“How? He’s Captain America. Virtue is his middle name. He just called the President out on live television and fucking twitter went and made him a hashtag. He’s trending.”  
  
“I got this today,” Steve shrugged. Placed a thin blue envelope on the table.  
  
“Well, fuck,” Tony said.  
  
“Wh-what-?” Bucky tried to speak up. It was more a squeak.  
  
“It’s a subpoena,” Hill explained. “Steve will be asked—Steve will be forced to testify,” she said. “For the prosecution. You may have succeeded in obtaining a U.S. trial, but you called out some powerful people, both of you. They will not take this kindly. They will not play fair. They will put Steve on the witness stand and force him to reveal the Soldier’s character. And those words? From Steve Rogers—Captain America? It will make their case.”  
  
“I won’t do it.”  
  
“You’ll do it or be held in contempt, Steve,” Maria said. “You’re the most qualified person to help James, you’re one of the only people living who remembers him, can serve as a character witness. We need your testimony.”  
  
“Every word I say the prosecution will just twist to use against Buck. I won’t hurt him.”  
  
“The defense needs your testimony,” she insisted. “We need you, Steve. Barnes needs you.”  
  
(He really did.)  
  
“I take the stand and they’re use me to tear him apart. I won’t be privy to that. I’d—I’d rather we take our chances out on our own.”  
  
“You want to disappear? With the most wanted man in the world—make that the galaxy? Best strategic mind of the second world war, Rogers. Fantastic. Can’t see how that could wrong. Not a good idea,” Stark shook his head. “You and your grand romantic gestures. They’re adorable. Adorable. Not helpful.”  
  
“Let me rephrase: Steve, I need your testimony. But we have to circumvent cross-examination…and more importantly, we _can_.”  
  
“We can?” Stark asked, as Steve looked up, hopefully.  
  
“How?” Steve’s voice was tight.  
  
“Marital privilege.”  
  
“I don’t understand,” Steve frowned.  
  
“You marry Bucky.”  
  
Bucky laughed. A deep, bitter laugh right out of his gut. He laughed until he cried, meat and metal arms wrapped around his belly, crying tears into his hair, his stubble a mess of salt and snot. “What, like that’s _legal_ or something?” he spewed as Stark and Steve stared. “Fuck, Hill!”  
  
“It’s legal now,” Hill said softly, looking between him and Steve. “And no one can compel Steve to testify against you if you invoke it.”  
  
_It’s legal now_. They way she said it. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t disgusting, wrong, like queers didn’t get jumped down by the docks beat to bloody pulps, killed. Like he wasn’t going to hell, like he wasn’t damned, like he wasn’t some perverted freak wanting Steve’s sickly little body…  
  
And Steve had been living here, had been living now, in this brave new world, for four fucking years. He knew. He knew and he never said—  
  
“Spousal privilege only applies from the date of the marriage,” Steve corrected her without an ounce of humor or emotion, like he was dead fucking serious, like he was just calling into question her knowledge of court procedure, not her absent sanity. Like he had previously given the idea thought. “They can still force me to talk about the Triskilion. About D.C.”  
  
_We were friends, Buck. Friends and nothing more._  
  
“We argue common law,” Maria said in earnest. “You cohabitated, Steve. For years. Shared living space, bank accounts. For the purposes of this case, you two have been married since 1940. I know the Judge. She has strong liberal tendencies, ties to the LGBTQ community, ruled in favor marriage equality in her home state.  I think she’ll take it. And the _precedent—_ “  
  
_We’re friends, Buck. We’ve always been friends._  
  
“Okay,” Steve sighed, nodded, leaned back in his chair as if it was his decision to make, as if it affected nothing at all, as if there wasn’t another human fucking life involved or at stake. “Okay.”  
  
“No,” Bucky said quietly.  
  
“It’s okay, Buck—“ Steve squeezed his shoulder.  
  
“I said no.”  
  
“I want to help you. It means nothing. It’s fine.”  
  
“Fuck you,” he whispered.  
  
The room went silent. Steve looked wounded.  
  
“Fuck you,” Bucky said again, shaking. “Fuck you, Rogers! Fuck you!”  
  
“Bucky,” Steve said. Then, whispered—“ _Bucky_.”  
  
“You knew!” he stood, raged, put a metal fist through the table. Hill and Stark jumped to the back of the room, far away as possible, Not-Zola/JARVIS was speaking reassuringly from the walls, and Bucky let out a cry, punched through plaster and steel, ripped the wires from the wall, made that voice go silent.  
  
Hill had her weapon drawn.  
  
“Bucky,” Steve began again, hands out, placating him. “Bucky.”  
  
He’d forgotten, had his soul ripped out, had The Soldier stuffed inside. It came back to him in bits and pieces, never solid, always transforming, glimpses into the life and person of James Buchanan Barnes even if he knew he’d never be that man again, not the man who’d loved Steve with every ounce of his being, who refused to surrender to torment and torture, who’d lost all hope, all will to live, to be, to breathe when they showed him the papers, the newsreels, that Captain America, that Steve Rogers was dead. I loved him, he’d realized, I loved him. And he thought—perhaps—he was confused—the memories—maybe they were—dreams. Hopes. Wishes. That James Barnes had been Steve’s friend and nothing more, that that night of stolen kisses had been the feverish, sex-crazed imaginings of a young boy.  
  
But it was clear now. Stevie Rogers had known exactly what he’d been up to, James Barnes hadn’t been fucking subtle at all, and Stevie Rogers either hadn’t wanted him, had been disgusted by him, by him being queer, or was too much a fucking coward to claim him.  
  
…but a man who hated you didn’t risk it all to go behind enemy lines to save your ass. A man who hated you didn’t drop his guard in the middle of a death-match when he saw your face after seventy years. A man who was disgusted with you didn’t risk his life, his country, his very ideals of the world to disable you instead of kill you, didn’t remove his mask, drop his shield, refuse to fight back. Agree to marry you. Those were the actions of a man who loved you.  
  
_You cohabitated, Steve. For years. For the purposes of this case, you two have been married since 1940._  
  
“Seventy years!” Bucky shouted, tearing his hair, his skin, trying to rip Barnes’ fucking face off with those metal fingers. “Seventy-four fucking years! You knew! All this time you knew, you fucking bastard, you fucking coward—“  
  
“Buck,” Steve grabbed his hands. “Bucky, listen to me, you’re hurting yourself—“  
  
“NO!” He shoved Steve against the wall, plaster cracking, Steve’s shoulders crumpling, shaking, shaking, an arm barred across his throat.“I loved you!” Bucky spat. “Since we were kids! Since I first met you and you knew, you fucking knew you fucking asshole!”  
  
“Barnes,” Hill had her gun up now. And Bucky laughed, laughed hysterically, maniacally, dropped Steve, brought his hands to hair and fucking laughed. Of course she would. Of course they would. All of them. His so-called protectors, his so-called friends. They didn’t know him, didn’t care about him, he was only useful to them insofar as he was a tactical asset to Captain America. He was a captive here, a hostage, traded HYDRA for SHIELD, Pierce for a new Handler. A Handler who would never touch him, never fuck him, not even when Bucky ached for it, couldn’t see him besides the shell of his broken best friend, disgusted by what he was, what he’d become, some dirty, used thing incapable of love or consent. Something to be pitied. Saved. Unworthy.  
  
“The hell you waitin’ for, doll?” he sneered. “Do it!”  
  
“Maria—“  
  
“He’s not stable, Cap! If you think I’m going to stand back and let him kill you again—“  
  
“You hurt Bucky and I will never forgive you,” Stevie stepped in front of him and promised her quietly, so worn, so old, so different from that scrawny rascal in Brooklyn who didn’t know how to keep his trap shut. But this was Steven fucking Rogers. Putting his ass on the line for some shithead he didn’t even know and didn’t fucking deserve him. And that shithead was him, Christ, that shithead _had always been him—_  
  
 “I will never stop hunting you,” Steve promised, deathly still. “Ask HYDRA. Am I lying?”  
  
“Cap—“  
  
“Give us the room,” Steve said. “Now.”  
  
“Well,” Stark quipped. “That escalated quickly.”  
  
“Both of you,” Steve growled.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Stark said in mock-salute. The door shut, and they were alone. Bucky fell to the floor, sobbing, sick, ashamed.  
  
Steve’s shoulders sagged. He turned, sat wearily next to Bucky, head hung.  
  
“I know,” Steve said. “Bucky, I knew.”  
  
“You said. Didn’t. We weren’t. Don’t,” Bucky pleaded, curling into himself. He couldn’t stand it, not this, not a lie about this. Not even to save him. He’d rather die. Rather be damned than be lied to about this. “Don’t lie to me.”  
  
“I lied. I lied to you, Bucky. I lied to protect you. I didn’t want to take advantage of you—you’re not you, not yet. I didn’t want to tell you something you weren’t ready for, to force you to remember, to force that—for you to out yourself when you didn’t _understand_ — didn’t want to think just because you loved me then that you had to feel that way now, that you had to do anything that you didn’t want to do—the you now. You’re—you’re him and you’re _not him_. And I love him. I love you,” Steve choked. “I love both of you so, so much.”  
  
“I wanted to marry you,” Bucky whined as Steve’s words washed over him the like warm light of day. “I wanted to marry you so bad.”  
  
“I know, you jerk,” Steve smiled like his heart was broken, like he was sobbing, like he was dying. “But we couldn’t. Not then. And I was a coward. I didn’t understand.”  
  
Bucky curled into his knees, pulled further into himself. “I loved you, I loved you, Stevie-baby, I loved you so fucking much—“  
  
“I know, sweetheart. I know," Steve pleaded. "And you tried. You did. I was a stubborn shit and I just wouldn’t—wouldn’t accept it. Not then. I thought you’d want me to—to be a girl, to be your _wife_ , to, to act like something I wasn't and I just _couldn’t_. It wasn’t me. And I was too damned selfish to see, to ask—“  
  
Those strong hands gripped his shoulders, knocked the wind from him.  “Fuck, Bucky. You were always my friend. You were the only person who could see me through everything else I was…I don’t know why I convinced myself that you loving me should be any different.  
  
“I love you,” Steve said, that low voice a surety, a conviction. “James Buchanan Barnes, I love you. Marry me.”  
  
“Not like this,” Bucky whined. “Not like this. If you’re gonna, we can’t, not like this—“  
  
“I know,” Stevie said. Held him close. Brought their foreheads together. “I know, Bucky. I know. Because I love you, because I want to marry you, because i always have. Because we can. That’s why, Buck. That’s why.”  
  
And it wasn’t perfect, and Bucky was still fucking, royally, really pissed off (seventy-four years worth of pissed off) and everything was not alright, and people still wanted to kill him and legal or not be damned there would be a shit-storm surrounding them and nothing would ever be the same, he wasn’t James Buchanan Barnes, not the one Steve had known, and his Stevie was a soldier now, a hero, a Captain and they couldn’t go back, it wouldn’t be like how they remembered, how they pictured, how they had hoped, and good fucking riddance. They had each other, how they were, how they are. They had here and now. They had this. They had for fucking ever.  
  
“Kiss me,” Bucky begged, brought those metal and flesh fingers reverently up to touch Steve’s lips. “Stevie, please—“  
  



	3. And Forever Will Be

How the hell, Steve thought, did you piece back together the remnants of a broken life? Broken body?  
  
_Slowly_ , Sam assured him. _Very, very slowly_.  
  
He’d waited seventy-four years. He’d waited his entire life. Hell. He could wait. Wait forever. Wait until Bucky was ready.  
  
Steve Rogers wasn’t a patient man, per se, but he was stubborn. “You stubborn ass,” Bucky had chided him a hundred thousand times if he’d done it once, hauling him up from some alley or bar floor or forest in Austria, Italy, Germany. The waiting didn’t bother him. He had Bucky—finally had him—and he could wait.  
  
No, the infuriating part wasn’t eighty-some odd years of sexual repression, self-loathing, or sexual starvation. The infuriating part was James Buchanan “I’m Fucking Better Already” Barnes.

[Well. Barnes-Rogers. Neither of them felt like giving away their last names—they’d lost too much of themselves to history and time already, and besides, it wasn’t as if the world was going to accept any changes after three-quarters of a century of celebrity, so Barnes-Rogers and Rogers-Barnes it was.  
  
“And when we have kids,” Bucky said, “they can just fucking deal with it.”  
  
Kids. Well, fuck. It’d been four years since waking in this century, and he’d even barely wrapped his head around queers being open couples, let alone marrying…and now Buck was talking about fatherhood like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world (Steve was pretty sure medical science hadn’t gotten _that_ far yet. But there’d be options…surely?).]

  
…and James Buchanan “I’m Fucking Better Just Fuck Me Already” Barnes had always enjoyed sex. Still wanted to. And so he’d initiate, suck down Steve’s lips and tongue without a word of warning, just pull himself up into Steve’s lap and grind his fucking hips, whine like the world was ending with every kiss—  
  
And always, inevitably, every single Goddamned time, there’d be this moment of release, of laughter, of finally, _we’re finally fucking doing this—_  
  
Then something would trigger. And Buck would be leaping away, weapon drawn from God knows where, shaking and stammering, didn’t know who, when, where he was, just wanted his mission _just give me a mission please, please I’ll be good I’ll be good I’m a Soldier I’m your Soldier sir just please give me a mission—_  
  
Sometimes Russian. Sometimes English. Sometimes too broken by sobs and screaming to be intelligible at all.  
  
Every time. Every. Single. Goddamned. Time.  
  
Bucky didn’t mean to be a cock tease. And after that first night when Steve had been stabbed and JARVIS had sent in the Avengers only to find Bucky half-naked and sobbing on the floor and Steve with a gaping wound to his throat, well. It had only gotten better from there.  
  
“I want this!” Bucky would shout, put his metal fist through the goddamned wall, the fucking bathroom mirror. “I want this! Fuck, Stevie! I want you why—why—fuck-f-fuu-uck-k—“ and Bucky, for all he was still Steve’s childhood savior, for all he was still Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, for all he had been the world’s most deadly assassin the Winter Soldier, would cry on the floor a sniveling, sobbing, snotty mess. And the worst part was Steve couldn’t even touch him.  
  
Bucky wanted to have sex, hell, he’d settle for fucking _masturbate_. But he couldn’t. HYDRA hadn’t just taken his mind they’d taken his body, stripped him of himself and his sexuality. Robbed him of any pleasure from a sexual touch. Steve had read the files. They’d used rape as a form of coercion, of control. They’d used sexual release as reward. As much as Bucky wanted Steve, he couldn’t have him, not any way, not even in fantasy, not without regressing to HYDRA and his handlers.  
  
_Just one more way_ , Steve thought sadly, _for that body to betray him._  
  
Steve was fine with waiting. Had been waiting his entire life. And now that Bucky was back—Bucky was _alive_ —he didn’t feel so squeamish jerking off to the thought his (now un-)dead best friend. Those first few weeks out of the ice had been rough, so much newness and stress, so many eyes constantly watching, so much anger and bitterness and rage, still adjusting to the levels of testosterone even years after Erskine’s serum transformed him. Bucky’s death had been still raw, still an open, gaping wound, and he didn’t even have his hands as release. The world had moved on, time had passed, but for the Steve Rogers who woke in New York it’d been two days. Two fucking days. He couldn’t touch himself and think of Bucky. Not then. Not after—  
  
…and hell. He couldn’t touch himself and _not_ think of Bucky. (Never had. Never would.) And so the punching bags at Goldie’s Gym, Stark Tower, and the Helicarrier had suffered with him.  
  
Now Bucky was here. In his arms. In his bed. Snuggled with his back up against Steve, his dark hair spread lazily over Steve’s face, tickling Steve’s nose, his lips, every time he breathed. And it was fucking perfect. It was everything Steve longed for for four lonely years, A Man Out of Time, and since that first night Bucky Barnes had crawled into his sick bed so many decades ago, “to keep you warm, Stevie.” (Ostensibly.)  
  
God. Bucky had tried so hard. So damned hard. And it should have been so obvious, really. Every single thing James Buchanan Barnes had ever done—ever said—the heroic rescues from fights Steve picked but never won, the patching him up after, the saving up to buy him oranges and pencils for Christmas, losing job after job staying home by his side when his lungs got too sick to be fucking lungs…the touches. The holding. The dancing. That fucking night and that fucking kiss.  
  
Steve had rubbed himself raw a thousand times thinking of that night, that kiss. Pushing Bucky back gently on the bed, climbing up over him, the feel of his hardening cock brushing against Steve’s own, the friction and heat as he canted his hips up against him, the feel of his lips, the taste of his breath, how large and dark and utterly helpless his blown eyes had been, the hitch in his husky voice as he gasped out “God, Stevie, I fucking _love_ you—“  
  
_Nope. Nope, Rogers. Abort, abort._ He was growing hard just thinking about it, and cuddled up like this with nothing but some Stark Industries sweat pants between them he was sure Bucky would feel the erection. And that was the last thing Bucky needed, for this safe space—this time together—to be taken away with a sick reminder of what HYDRA, what Alexander Died Too Fucking Quickly Pierce had done to him.  
  
Steve Rogers was a gentleman. Steve’s dick, however, could be an absolute bastard. And the heat of having Bucky pressed up against him, the feel of his taut ass against him, the smooth globes of muscle and stark indent of his crack. Well. Steve coughed. Adjusted himself awkwardly. There. At least now his rapidly hardening cock wasn’t intruding where it wasn’t invited.  
  
He just hoped Bucky had been asleep for that.  
  
But Steve Rogers was still Steve Rogers, even after becoming Captain America, so of course the universe decided to fuck with him. Steve just couldn’t catch a fucking break. You want your best friend/husband back? Great. You want to marry him in the eyes of God and men? Awesome. You want to fuck him/have him fuck you senseless? Nope. Sorry. Can’t do.  
  
Bucky chortled sleepily. Mumbled into the pillow, “When I want your dick up my ass, I’ll let you know, Rogers.”  
  
“S-sorry,” Steve whispered, mortified.  
  
“In your defense, it is a very nice ass.”  
  
“You are so full of it.”  
  
But Bucky only rolled over, deliciously sinful grin stretched across his groggy features. “You _wish_ I was so full of it.”  
  
“James Buchanan!”  
  
“Steven Grant,” Buck stuck his tongue out like the rascal of a kid he used to be.  
  
Then—  
  
Bucky leaned closer, the tip of his nose pressed to Steve’s own. Steve could count Bucky’s long lashes, feel the heat of his husband’s breath mingled with his own. “What were you thinking about?”  
  
“Nothing,” Steve lied. He was a terrible liar, and both he and Bucky knew it.  
  
Bucky sat up angrily, the moment shattering. “I swear to God, Stevie, if it was even _Carter—_ “  
  
“Which one?” Steve asked innocently, trying balance levity with humor. “Peggy or Sharon?”

  
“Both. Either. Fuck,” Bucky fumed, and those blue eyes clouded a jealous rage, lip bit fiercely between his teeth. “I am so sick and fucking tired of playing second fiddle to some goddamned dame named Carter.”  
  
_Seventy-some years of that shit_ , Bucky had grunted once, snarling at Sharon (and yes, Steve knew, knew from his USO days that the gentle, laughing, innocent touches women suddenly left against his arms, his chest were anything but…but somehow, even in 2016, it was easier to stand up for someone else than for himself. In this matter, at least. And he worked with Sharon, she was Peggy’s niece, didn’t want to make it awkward, and yeah, Rogers, you’d look for any excuse not to deal with sexual advances against yourself and make your goddamned husband do it for you because you’re too ashamed to admit that yeah, it was nice to get that sort of attention, even still. Especially when—[when your own goddamned husband couldn’t get it up]). _You might be a dame but I’ll still kill you. Keep fucking hands to yourself_.  
  
Steve wasn’t proud of himself. Was pissed at himself for allowing it to happen, had been furious with Bucky, using language like that, busting out the Winter Soldier stare, using that goddamned metal arm to punch a hole in the wall behind Sharon’s head to prove a point. Tony had stopped the meeting dead, and Sam had hauled ass to grab Bucky and drag him out of there before any further words (or blows) could be exchanged. It was one of their first and only real fights as an officially wedded couple, angry words and shouting exchanged on both sides.  
  
Bucky had stayed on the couch, jaw set stubbornly, back turned pointedly towards him. Steve had gone to bed, gone to bed but hadn’t slept. And it had been so much—so damned much—like that night so long ago, awake and sweaty hearing Bucky’s low, muffled sobs that Steve finally kicked himself free from the covers and went to him. If Bucky Barnes could cover Stevie Rogers with a coat so he wouldn’t catch his death of cold, then he sure as hell could do his best guy the decency of being in the same damned room.  
  
“I’m s-s-sorry,” Bucky moaned. “I’m s-sorry f-for everything. I don’t wanna—don't wanna be like this—I, I, I wanna b-be with you a-an-and I c-can’t—“  
  
“Hey, Buck. It’s okay,” he soothed, took those flesh fingers and pressed them between his own. “I love you. ‘Til the end of the line, pal.”  
  
“Don’t,” Buck sniffed before falling asleep. “Stevie. Shouldn’t.”  
  
_The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So good becomes great, bad, becomes worse_ , Erskine had told him that jittery night, the last one he’d spent as Stevie Rogers before this new body had consumed him. Bucky Barnes wasn’t a bad man, wasn't evil, was nothing like that megalomaniac Schmidt, had had this bastardized, incomplete version of Erskine’s serum and decades of inhumanity forced upon him…but yes. Yes, Steve knew that flash of anger in his eyes, that glaring, glazed jealousy, that utter sense of possession as Bucky loomed over him. He’d had seen it before. In glimpses. Flashes. Something buried deep within that Bucky had fought like hell to keep at bay. Smashing teeth and noses of Steve’s tormentors, shaking out his fist sending rivulets of blood everywhere, that grin on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. The hunger in his face as he cleaned Stevie up, hands insistent, fierce, but so gentle as they probed for bruises or broken ribs. That time when he was twenty and he pulled a guy off Steve, punched the guy and kept punching him and straddled him on the alley floor in the dirt and broken glass and shit, kept fucking punching him until he stopped fighting back and screaming and just lay there, pink foam spraying from his nose and mouth and making this godawful, fucking terrifying gurgle all because he’d cornered Steve in a back alley, cornered him, called him a little queer, fucking fairy, said he'd make him suck it if he liked dick that much. “Is this how you like it, fucker? Is this how you fucking like it!” Bucky raged and raged until Steve hauled him up and off saying _stop Buck, Bucky, stop it, Buckythat’senough!_ ("He was gonna, he was gonna—" Buck’s breath had hitched into a little whisper of a sob and he just stood there, helpless. That was the first and only time Stevie Rogers had ever cleaned his friend up after a fight, bandaged his knuckles and sent him to bed. They never spoke of it again.) That night. In the alley behind the dancehall. With Betty and Margie. Stevie’d been too shocked, too overwhelmed by the heat in his face and groin to notice, but Steve Rogers had seen that predatory instinct then. The kiss had been so short, so unexpected Stevie didn’t know what hit him until it was over…but Bucky still saw.  
  
Bucky had been _watching_. Necking and groping Margie Brennen, but with his eyes fixed on Stevie. Now what does that say about a fella if he’s eyeing his best friend while making time with his best girl?  
  
Hell, Steve knew—the whole of fucking _Brooklyn_ knew—George Barnes hit Winnie. Knew he’d done other things, too, late at night, stumbling in blind drunk and meaner than sin. Knew Bucky hated every moment in that house, only kept going back for Becca and the little ones…knew Buck felt there was something of a monster in him from his Barnes blood, but Bucky had taken that anger and hate and loathing and used it for good. For protecting. For Steve.  
  
_Because a strong man who has had power all his life has lost respect for that power_ , Erskine had said. But it just wasn’t true. Wise as he was, Abraham Erskine had never known James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes had never lost his respect for strength. Or weakness. Knew its value. Still knew, still practiced Love. Compassion. And never—Steve was grateful, so fucking grateful Buck had no idea—pity.  
  
So no. Hell fucking _no_ Steve Rogers was sure as hell not thinking about Peggy or Sharon fucking Carter.  
  
“You,” Steve finally admitted, cheeks suddenly hot.  
  
“Damn straight,” Bucky grunted, settling back down, a tinge of embarrassment mapped over his features.  
  
“Buck, I never think straight when I’m thinking of you,” it would’ve gotten a chuckle out of Sam, that’s for sure. Bucky just huffed. Worked his jaw. And Steve? Steve could photograph, paint every small motion of those well-worried lips, white teeth, cleft chin, the shadows of his stubble and the sharp angle of his strong set jaw. He had memorized that face, memorized and enshrined, and yet with every sight it was as if seeing it anew.  
  
“…Stevie?” Bucky asked. Had asked. Shit. “The hell’d you go, pal?”  
  
“I was thinking about that night. That kiss.” Steve whispered, voice low and breathy, curling his fingers into Bucky’s, bringing that metal hand to his lips and kissing it. “Our first. You remember?”  
  
But Bucky only frowned. Pulled that hand away.  
  
“Buck—“  
  
“Don’t, Stevie.” He could still be so sensitive about that metal hand. Didn’t like it when Steve touched it. When Steve showed love to a part of him that wasn’t himself. Hell, wouldn’t even fucking _touch_ Steve with it. Buck was ashamed, ashamed and afraid of what he’d become—what they’d made him. Steve had a hard enough time adjusting to his own post-serum body, and he’d chosen this change. He supposed he could hardly blame Buck. He reached for the flesh hand instead. “Hey—“  
  
But Bucky only curled it to his chest, hidden under the bulk of strewn covers and his body. Hid them both away as though ashamed. “I said _don’t_ , Stevie.”  
  
“That kiss got me through so much,” Steve continued, resting a hand against Bucky’s arm instead, desperate for any touch, “got me through the war, brought me here, brought you back to me. That kiss was all I had, Buck, for the longest time. It’s alright if you don't remember—we’re together now. We can make new memories, okay?”  
  
“And the old ones…” he promised. “I can remember for you. I can remember for us both.”  
  
“No, Stevie. I remember,” Bucky bit his lip, worked his jaw. Rolled away to give Steve his back again, brush off that unwanted touch. “Don’t.”  
  
He felt his heart breaking. “Don’t what?”  
  
“Don’t—don’t fucking _romanticize_ it, ‘kay?”  
  
“Jesus, Buck. It was a fucking kiss—our first fucking kiss—our _only_ kiss—how could I not?”  
  
“I shouldn’t’ve,” Bucky whispered. Shuddered. “I shouldn’t’ve.”  
  
“Hey,” Steve said, resisting the urge—the compulsion, need—to reach out and hold him. Bury his face in the back of Bucky’s neck, envelop him in his arms until their hearts, their breaths came as one.  “Hey, Buck—“  
  
“Didn’t, didn’t ask, d-d-didn’t say—“  
  
“You didn’t hurt me,” Steve soothed. “Didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to.”  
  
“You said no,” Bucky shuddered, sobbing. Sobbing like his heart’s been broken, like he’s fucking dying. “You said n-no a-and I f-fuckin’ k-kissed you anyw-ways!”  
  
FUCK, thought Steve. He and Bucky remembered that kiss very differently.  
  
_I don’t think I can do that_ , Buck. It wasn’t a ‘no’, it wasn’t ‘stop’, it wasn’t ‘don’t’, and Bucky had convinced him— _convinced_ him, not pressured him, not forced him—  
  
And hell, Steve had been the one to—  
  
_Steve_ was the one who pushed him back. Held his head down against the bed, fists full of that dark, thick hair, forced Bucky’s pliant mouth up into an angle where he could kiss him and keep on kissing him, lips flushed and full, his face raw and broken from the friction of Buck’s sharp stubble. _Steve_ had been the one who dragged himself up on the bed, climbed up to straddle Bucky’s hips, drunk with the feeling of kissing his best guy, heady and giddy with the power of being in fucking control of something and someone so fucking gorgeous, so fucking good to him as James Buchanan Barnes, his head reeling, gut warm, hard as a fucking rock. And if that wasn’t giving his full on _fucking informed, enthusiastic consent_ (a phrase Sam seemed to toss around as easily and naturally as a baseball when it came to discussing sex) to get down and dirty then Steven Grant Still Technically A Virgin Rogers didn’t know what was.  
  
“Buck—“ he swallowed.  
  
“I love you,” Steve finally said. Didn’t know what else to say.  
  
“F-fu-fuck-k you, R-Rogers.”  
  
And suddenly it’s so obvious. Steven Grant Rogers-Barnes could punch himself. “I want you. I want _all_ of you, every bit of you, every way you’ll give me, any way I can. I want you now, and I wanted you _then_. Pierce, HYDRA, your old man,” Steve told him. “Fuck, Bucky. You’re nothing like them.”  
  
Bucky had himself a good cry. Okay, Steve lied. Bucky had himself a fucking _miserable_ cry, and Steve holds him, holds him like he’s holding his heart together, holding him back from death’s very door, holding him for the both of them, holding him for all the nights Buck held him, for the all the nights they were torn apart by war, by HYDRA, by the fucking ice, Steve holds him. Just fucking holds him.  
  
And finally. Finally after minutes, hours, days, seven tenths of a fucking century it’s finally over. Sobs turned to sniveling. Sniveling turned to silence. And Steve just fucking holds him. Just holds him.  
  
Then—  
  
“Hey, Buck…can I kiss you?”  
  
His husband’s face was tear-streaked and his eyes rimmed with red, but there’s a crooked, impish grin tugging the corners of his soft mouth into a wide, white smile. “You’d f-fuckin’ better, pal.”  



	4. And Now

The body was problematic.   
  
The body was broken. The body was _disgusting._ The body belonged to Barnes, Sergeant JamesBuchanan-Rogers. The body belonged to Rogers-Barnes, StevenGrant.   
  
…The body did not deserve him.   
  
Even in the steamy, safe confines of the master bath on their floor of Stark Tower, Bucky didn’t like being naked. Something about decades of HYDRA’s abuse, something about that ugly mass of scars lining his chest, shoulder and back. That cold, alien metal appendage stark against his skin. Something about the way his ribs jutted out, his hip bones stuck through his flesh, gangly and gross with none of the bird-like grace or beauty of Stevie’s once small frame. He looked sickly. He looked unwell.  Looked fucking vulnerable. Like a fucking victim. Looked like he’d walked out of the fucking _Konzentrationslager_. He’d know—he’d fucking been there. Been in Europe for four fucking years. Spoke Russian, German, French, a smattering of Italian, and Yiddish, his mother’s tongue. They’d all heard the voices, heard their words, but he never did tell Stevie or the Howlies what they _meant_.  
  
He looked at the body in the mirror. The body looked back. The body wasn’t Barnes, Sergeant JamesBuchanan. Wasn’t Bucky, Buck. Wasn’t even the Winter Soldier. The body wasn’t him. Not self or soul. Not home. Self and Home were Steve. It didn’t matter which body, Steve was Steve would always be his Steve. And the body? The body was a _prison_. Fit like a mocking, misshapen glove. Like a goddamned metal arm. Truth be told, he’d stopped being Bucky Barnes back in Azzano. He hadn’t been Bucky Barnes in a long, long time. Even in 1945.  
  
Bucky didn’t like showers. Sure, in Stark Tower they were hot and steaming instead of frozen, but he couldn’t shake the fear of choking gas instead of water vapor, of Steve searching for him through the bones of a mass grave covered in human ash. Hail Hydra. Heil fucking Hitler. He’d bled for them, killed for them, nearly killed Steve for them, the Nazi cocksuckers. He wanted to die. Wanted to kill the Winter Solider.   
  
Bucky couldn’t shower. Couldn’t forget the terror of being forced under ice cold water, pressure so hard it could rend flesh from bone, sprayed and scrubbed with a pressure washer like a dog, like a thing, a tool, a weapon to be cleaned and stored. Didn’t like the feeling of being barefoot, naked, afraid, utterly exposed and vulnerable.   
  
But it wasn’t just that. Of course not. He wasn’t so fucking lucky. They used come for him. In the showers. Humiliate him. Use him. Other times they’d disguise it as kindness, as pity, and he’d let them touch him, let them rut against him, suck them off, felt so goddamned good, so goddamned desperate for some human contact, even something to disgusting, so fleeting, so damning as an uncomfortable, anonymous fuck between their missions, wipes and reprogramming.   
  
Bucky hated showers. He hated the body. Some days he couldn’t bear to look, to even cursorily touch himself to clean. Some days he couldn’t even bring himself to strip, just wiped where he needed to with warm, soapy water, just to rid himself of the stink. But once a week, once a week at least, Steve and Sam had urged him, he really ought to get completely clean.  
  
(He scrubbed and scrubbed but the blood, the semen, the swastika and sickle, it just wouldn’t come off. It would never, ever come off.)  
  
Bucky Barnes didn’t shower. Bucky Barnes took a bath.  
  
Steve had caught him in the tub fully clothed, once. On accident. He’d ordered Bucky a wetsuit and some swimming trunks from Amazon. Never said a word, just left them in the bathroom for him on his next routinely scheduled “personal hygiene day”.  
  
Sam called it “self care”. Bucky called it bullshit. No amount of scented soaps or soft towels could make him feel like a fucking person. But Steve would smile ruefully, and Bucky would indulge him because Bucky fucking Barnes would indulge Stevie Rogers anything. It was like breathing, like the earth orbiting the sun, it was just a simple, scientific fact. So once a week Bucky Barnes took a bath. Ran the tap until the water was fucking boiling, the mirror fogging over until he couldn’t see himself. And only then would he strip down, shucking shirt and pants off quickly and diving into the comfort of the wetsuit or the swimming trunks. Fill the tub with strange-smelling suds with the most fucking ridiculous names (where the hell did Stevie get them he wondered) and disappear into the water.   
  
The tub was big enough to lay down. To let the water lap over him. Just float, suspended, lost in a sea of warmth and the gentle foam of hills of bubbles. Just Bucky goddamned Barnes-Rogers, just the fucking Winter Soldier, just taking a goddamned bubble bath.   
  
Brushing teeth. Washing skin. Hell, wiping his fucking ass. The Winter Soldier had been the world’s deadliest assassin…it didn’t need it in is programming. Didn’t know what the rumbling pang in its stomach or dizziness meant, why the body’s lips dried and cracked and its tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Didn’t know what that lingering smell, uncomfortable wet in its pants was. Spent a week wandering DC, lost and dazed, unsure, uncertain, both tried and tried to avoid all the rendezvous points programmed deep into it as the drugs wore off and it picked and scratched the ants on its skin until it was torn and bleeding. Waited in an alleyway and jumped the first man its size, held a knife to his throat as he blubbered, said “I will not fuck you. I will not make you suck it,” (it hadn’t known why it said that, didn’t know how or why it knew this is why the man was crying, but the man was a Man, and the Asset was only a weapon, not  Barnes, Sergeant JamesBuchanan, not yet Barnes-Rogers, Sergeant JamesBuchanan.), took his clothes and went to the museum. The Asset could not go to the museum, no, but the Asset’s new cover could.  
  
It was there he—well, _the_ _Asset_ —decided to return to its Handler Steve. Its Handler Steve had been kind to it. The evidence was overwhelming. Its Handler Steve had—it was rumored—even _loved_ it. It was not Barnes, JamesBuchanan. Not then. But it had been. It could be. It could pretend. it could take a new cover. It could learn to love the Captain. Love was, after all, only programming.  
  
…and the Asset needed maintenance.   
  
Bucky floated listlessly, listened to the slosh and tinkle of water against the bath walls, felt the crinkle of soap bubbles against his skin, closed his eyes and sighed, breathed in the scent of what—? Cinnamon? Vanilla? (Was that fucking _coffee_ —? Twenty-first century kids, so fucking spoiled. Back in his day they’d barely had a bar of ivory between them. )  
  
The brain might be back—or as near as it was going to get to it. But the body, Bucky was beginning to realize, lifting a hand lazily and listening to the fall of water, still needed maintenance.   
  
 Affirmative.  
  
The body wasn’t the only one. The Handler—shit, Steve, his fucking husband—needed goddamned maintenance. Shit. Fuck. Sex. It’s Handler—fuck, shit, Steve, his Steve, Stevie (Rogers-Barnes, StevenGrant. Alias Captain America. Babydoll. Sugartits.) needed sex.   
  
…case in point.  
  
“Buck—!” Steve yelped, slamming the laptop closed and yanking his right hand from its languid perch in his crotch. “I, uh—“  
  
Feelings overwhelmed him. Anger. Sadness. Jealousy.   
  
…Humor?  
  
Humor. It felt the most like Bucky Barnes, at least the Bucky Barnes who Stevie’d saved at Azzano. The Bucky who lied his way through the front, who had Stevie’s back ’til the end of the line, who fell from that train, who picked up that shield, who fought, who faked a smile and a laugh, a soul for Stevie’s sake. The anger, the jealousy? Those were the Soldier. And the sadness—?  
  
The sadness was the Bucky Barnes who died on that fucking table. The boy from Brooklyn. The boy who loved, who kissed, who lusted after sickly little Stevie Rogers. The sadness he just couldn’t fucking deal with right now.   
  
Maybe ever.  
  
“What’cha got there, Stevie?”  
  
“Nothing!” Steve tried frantically to stuff his dick back into his undone pants, but the erection sprang free from the elastic of his boxers and just sort of sat there in awkward salute. Steve flushed (an even deeper shade of) crimson, and pulled a pillow firmly onto his lap.   
  
“It don’t _look_ like nothin’,” Bucky grinned, crawling across the bed towards him. “You watching a porno, Stevie? In our bed?”  
  
Steve made a sound like he was dying.  
  
…Afuckingfirmative.  
  
“You seeing a skin flick without me?” he drawled. “Is it a good one?”  
  
“Bucky!”  
  
“Honest little Stevie Rogers? More Catholic than the Pope? America’s Star  Spangled Man With a Plan? Caving to carnal desires? Now _this_ I gotta see.”  
  
“Bucky—“ Steve groaned, fingers resisting, clutching at that laptop for dear life.  
  
Bucky rapped his knuckles with the flat of his metal hand, swift and sure like a nun’s ruler in a Sunday School in Brooklyn almost a century ago. “Lemme see.” 

  
“Bucky!”  
  
“Aw, c’mon Stevie, ain’t like this’ll be the _first_ time I’ve caught you in our bed with your pants down—“  
  
“Bucky, don’t—!”  
  
Oh.  
  
…Oh, you sad, pathetic bastard. Of course. Of course this is what Stevie would watch, what Steven Grant Rogers would jerk off to. Not dames and tits or fairies fucking or weird-ass artsy fuck-dreams but _this._ Goddamnit. God fucking damnit.  
  
It was his face frozen on the screen, healthy and hale, James fucking Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. Smiling and laughing in USO newsreels.  
  
“Bucky—?”  
  
He wanted to laugh. To smile. To be that Bucky again. He wanted to scream, to shout, to yell at Stevie until he was fucking blue in the face that he wasn’t, he couldn’t, he would never be that Bucky again, wanted to rage, hurl that computer, that stupid, fucking, lying Bucky across the room and watch the computer screen crack. He wanted to cry, bawl his fucking eyes out for lying, for failing, for falling, for hurting, for making his best friend, his Stevie, his husband drive himself to suicide, let him smash his face in above the Potomac, for staying behind as that HYDRA helicarrier fell apart around them. He wanted to shove Stevie down, shove him down and fuck him senseless, feel the heat and friction between their bodies, the shape of that swell ass beneath his hands, taste his mouth and tongue and lips and sweat, to relive that night, that kiss again, to get it fucking right this time, to claim him and be claimed as Steve’s own. He wanted to fall to his knees and sob, beg for forgiveness, for long years apart, for all their loss and longing.  
  
…For not letting them both drown in the goddamned Potomac together when they had the chance. This century was strange to them. They were strangers to this time. They were strangers to each other.   
  
But he did none of those things.  
  
The body was problematic. The skin too sallow, the face too lined, the eyes too dark. The cheeks were sunken, the ribs and hips too prominent, the smile and left arm both gone. The digestion didn’t work. The erection didn’t work. The brain was fucked up unfuckingbelievable. The body was a mess.   
  
The body backed up slowly, feet finding the floor again of their own accord. The mouth was dry. But the voice, when it spoke, didn’t shake at all. “I want a divorce.”  
  



End file.
